English Listening: 53 Years Together | Episode 07

Listen to a story about celebrating my parents’ 53rd wedding anniversary!

You’ll also learn how to pronounce the word “anniversary.”

Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!

Each episode includes a story and a pronunciation tip. In the story, I use core vocabulary, the most common words in English, to tell a real world story. The pronunciation tip will help you understand natural spoken English.

You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. It sounds funny because I used editing software to change the speed of the story and make it slower. After the pronunciation tip, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed.

THE STORY

Last week, we celebrated a special day in our family. It was my parents’ 53rd wedding anniversary! Can you imagine living with someone for 53 years? That’s extraordinary! My parents are still in love and they still have a strong relationship. We’re a close family, so it was exciting to celebrate this day with them.

My parents met in the 1950s when they were both teenagers and they worked at the same place. My dad noticed my mom right away. He thought she was very attractive, intelligent, and fun to be with. When he asked her out on a date<, my mom had to ask my grandmother for permission. Luckily my uncle (my mother’s brother) worked at the same place and knew my dad. My uncle told my grandmother that my dad was a good guy and it was OK to let my mother go on a date with him. My uncle still likes to remind my dad of this!

My parents dated for a few years before they married. From all the pictures I’ve seen, it looks like they had a lot of fun together when they were young. They would go on dates to the movies or to parties and dances, and sometimes they would double date with my uncle and his girlfriend. Sometimes my grandmother even made my mother take her two younger sisters with her on dates! Fifty-three years later, my parents still have fun together. Every day they go out for coffee and do crossword puzzles together.

My parents didn’t want to do anything elaborate for their anniversary. On the day of their anniversary, our entire family went to a local restaurant for dinner. We had drinks & a lovely meal. It was a really nice evening! My brother quietly told the waiter that it was my parents’ anniversary, and the waiter brought out a cake for dessert, on the house!

NOTE: I wrote fifty-three at the beginning of a sentence instead of the number 53 because I was taught in school that you could not start a sentence with a number. Many people don’t pay attention to this rule anymore, but I still do!

PRONUNCIATION TIP

There are two ways to pronounce the word anniversary and they sound very similar. Listen carefully:
/ænə’vɚsəri/
/ænə’vɚsri/

The first syllable is the sound /æ/

In English, double consonants are only pronounced once, so there is only one n sound. The second syllable is pronounced /nɪ/ or /nə/. In an unstressed syllable, the two vowel sounds are similar.
/ænɪ/
/ænə/

The third syllable is the stressed syllable. It’s pronounced /vɝ/ and it is said louder and longer than the other syllables.
ænəvɚ

The sa can be pronounced /sə/ with the reduced vowel sound /ə/,
/ænə’vɚsəri/

… or you can skip this syllable and finish the word with /sri/
/ænə’vɚsri/

The y at the end of the word is pronounced /i/.
/ænə’vɚsəri/
/ænə’vɚsri/

Comments

I like to read your stories on internet englishteachermelanie.com.
I try to read every day a story.
But in the article 53 Years Together | Episode 07 I think there is a mistake in the text.
Please read the next line, My parents didn’t want to do anything elaborate for their anniversary.
I thought the word elaborate has to be seleborate?

Hello Melanie
Recently I saw your website and decided to try learn English from it. My English is not very well but I make try to improve it. This story was told by you it’s so beautiful and useful for learn language and lifestyle.
I know only one partners from my family who’d celebrated 50 Years anniversary. That were my grandparents, parents my dad.
In our country we also celebrate Days of wedding and years of life together has own names. For instance 1y is Chintz wedding, 2 is Sheet married,…, 5 is Wood,…, 50 is Gold, 75 is Brilliant. At this day we have a custom to give a gifts which madden from material name year wedding.
I have married about 11 year, have two daughters and last year my wife and I had celebrated 10 years ours life of together. We had great day. Early morning I gave my wife 9 Pink roses (even number is not polite for celebration in our place except it’s possible to visit graveyard, and give more is unwanted, too) and Pink wallet. Then we had a nice night at local restaurant, only my wife and I…
Melanie I have one question for you, could please tell me about use two words ‘fun’ and ‘funny’ and different between them when we have chat on English.
Thank you very much. Take care.
Yaroslav, Ukraine
p.s. excuse for my mistakes

I like to read your stories on internet englishteachermelanie.com.
I try to read every day a story.
But in the article 53 Years Together | Episode 07 I think there is a mistake in the text.
Please read the next line, My parents didn’t want to do anything elaborate for their anniversary.
I thought the word elaborate has to be seleborate?

Thank you teacher! this is exactly what I was looking for! I think I’m good with reading and I’m practicing my grammar, but I have troubles with listening, when I see movies in english I can understand almost all the movie with subtitles in english, but when I see the same movie without subtitles I feel lost :( so this is exactly what I need. I discovered that I just need practice it because I understand almost all your podcast :) by the way is a lovely story <3.

That is a lovely story! In Russian speaking countries married couples usually celebrate 25th and 50th anniversaries calling them a ‘silver’ and ‘golden’ wedding respectively. I suppose many people use the same terms as well, but I am not sure. I can hardly remember anyone of my relatives who did celebrate their golden wedding, but me and my wife are certain about our being together till that anniversary (just 49 years are remaining :))
I was wondering what the proper modern word for ‘to court’ is? Is it ‘date’? Thanks.

not many people celebrate their wedding anniversary in may country. but i knew one: they selebrated 50 years of marriage. they selebrated their wedding annivery at their house and made a big party, with beverages cakes and other things to celebrate our wedding anniversary we go out to a local restaurant or we leave to the my wife’s mother house and make a dinner there because we got marriage on dicember 31th and we don’t like to go too far in that date. i’m very happy because i have a beatiful woman and a beatiful daughter, we got 6 years together and our treasure is one year and 5 month she’s born on dicember 10th and we are cristian we worship God for this precious gift that has given us. thenks malenie don’t for get to take me as your student.
God bless you. don’t forget you that you are a person very special

Thank you for your kind words! Congratulations to you & your wife on 6 years of marriage and your lovely daughter. On December 31, you can have a HUGE party to celebrate your anniversary AND New Year’s Eve! That must be so fun!

I really like your method of teaching it's absolutely interesing and your accent is very clear and understandable.I hope that someday will be able to afford travling to toronto and enjoy finding out new cultures. going on a date with a canadian girl would be a real pleasure.Thank you so much for your effort and your great English lessons.

Thank you for your effort….My parent had the same story like you and they were together until my Mother left this life and they had 11 (now fully grew) children…me as the last son of my Mother, I have married and my marriage lasted in two months, not my mistake anyway and have a child from this marriage …praise be to God now I am quite ok with my child and I visit my child every weekend once as I am busy with school and work. I have never celebrated my wedding anniversary as it is now about second anniversary and my child is now 1,6y..as well I have never seen my parent celebrating their wedding anniversary…thanks for asking.

Thank you dear Melanie, it is a really great job, it is very very helpful for me. It is so pleasent to hear such a nice love story, unfortunatelly my parents are divorsed. nino tsamalaidze (from facebook)

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

About Melanie

I help English learners move from the classroom into the real world by teaching you real world sentences and helping you understand natural spoken English. I also help you find the best study tips and training techniques that work for you!

Amazon Associates Disclosure

English Teacher Melanie is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.